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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2013
Almuth Dold, said, as if on cue. Hellman
wrote that down in his notebook, and
used it in the piece. He made no mention
of the whale penis, though. He was picky
about shtick.
Neal Thompson's new biography, "A
Curious Man: The Strange and
Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not!'
Ripley," is, unbelievably, boring. Thomp-
son has written three other books: a biog-
raphy of the astronaut Alan Shepard, a
history of Nascar, and an account of the
fate of a New Orleans high-school foot-
ball team during and after Hurricane Ka-
trina. His biography of Ripley is being
published by Crown Archetype, a division
of Random House, and is also being pro-
moted and sold by Ripley Entertainment,
a global media conglomerate that is the
successor to Ripley's Believe It or Not! "A
Curious Man" is part book, part stunt.
Ripley Entertainment, according to
its Web site, controls "over 90 exciting
attractions in 10 countries, along with
best-selling books, a network television
series in more than 70 countries, and the
longest continuously published newspa-
per comic in history." Its properties in-
clude the Guinness World Records
Museums and the Louis Tussaud's Wax-
works. Its headquarters are in Orlando,
where it houses the papers of the man
who started it all. As Thompson ex-
plains, Ripley Entertainment gave him
"unfettered access to the climate-con-
trolled room containing the company's
archives, a one-stop-shopping trove of
Ripley's personal and business papers,
journals, photographs, home movies, let-
ters, and more." (You can see a selection
of nineteen-thirties and forties photo-
graphs from that three-hundred-foot-
long collection in a terrific coffee-table
book published in 1993: "Dear Mr. Rip-
ley: A Compendium of Curioddities
from the Believe It or Not! Archives.")
Thompson also had at his disposal the
Doug and Hazel Anderson Storer Col-
lection, recently donated to the Univer-
sity of North Carolina. It contains letters,
travel diaries, films, photographs, con-
tracts, and radio scripts. Doug Storer was
Ripley's agent and producer. When Rip-
ley died, Storer became the president of
Believe It or Not! Thompson's sources
are the guardians of Ripley's legacy.
Despite this astonishing cache of al-
most-never-before-seen-if-possibly-
slightly-fishy documents, Thompson's
account of Ripley's life relies, too, and at
times heavily, on press clippings, includ-
ing "Odd Man," Hellman's two-part New
Yorker Profile of Ripley. It comes, then, as
a bit of a slap when Thompson says that
"Odd Man" is derivative, that Hellman
"summarized the Ripley legend" and "re-
hashed vignettes of Ripley's charmed ca-
reer." Thompson didn't investigate Hell-
man's sources, so far as I can tell; he had
no particular reason to. For the record,
though, Hellman's typed-up research
notes are filed with his papers at the Fales
Library, at New York University. One
thing you can find out by reading them is
that Ripley wanted Hellman to write his
biography. Hellman did not.
Meanwhile, "A Curious Man," a
book whose author had at his fingertips
materials that few other historians have
seen, reads as though it were written not
by Ripley's biographer but by his publi-
cist. Over three decades, Ripley showed
the world to more Americans than any
reporter or ambassador ever did. Thomp-
son argues that Ripley was "a voice for
the people, bringing the world's weird-
ness to their doorsteps." He was "the
country's know-it-all professor of history,
geography, science, and anthropology,"
Thompson writes. "His offbeat lessons
gave people hope." That's not history;
that's advertising copy. Hope, while oc-
casionally the thing with feathers, is not
usually a two-headed pickled fetus from
Sri Lanka.
LeRoy Ripley was born in Santa Rosa,
California, in 1890. His family
called him Roy; other people called him
Rip. He was gentle and shy, endearingly
shy. His teeth protruded so badly that
speech was difficult; there were some
sounds he just couldn't make. He stam-
mered and stuttered. He spent much of
his childhood drawing pictures and play-
ing baseball. (He played, very briefly, on a
LEÇONS DE TÉNÈBRES
But are they lessons, all these things I learn
Through being so far gone in my decline?
The wages of experience I earn
Would service well a younger life than mine.
I should have been more kind. It is my fate
To find this out, but find it out too late.
The mirror holds the ruins of my face
Roughly together, thus reminding me
I should have played it straight in every case,
Not just when forced to. Far too casually
I broke faith when it suited me, and here
I am alone, and now the end is near.
All of my life I put my labour first.
I made my mark, but left no time between
The things achieved, so, at my heedless worst,
With no life, there was nothing I could mean.
But now I have slowed down. I breathe the air
As if there were not much more of it there
And write these poems, which are funeral songs
That have been taught to me by vanished time:
Not only to enumerate my wrongs
But to pay homage to the late sublime
That comes with seeing how the years have brought
A fitting end, if not the one I sought.
---Clive James